About Arnold

A Filipino tech guy who reluctantly pursued entrepreneurship and now leads TeamSparrow, a team of web developers, designers and marketers based in Mandaluyong City, Philippines. A husband, father and a follower of Jesus.

Category: Day today

I just have to repost this from this blog. Great insight. Works well for our lives — at work, family or ministry.

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The ceramics teacher announced he was dividing his class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right graded solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would weigh the work of the “quantity” group: 50 pounds of pots rated an A, 40 pounds a B, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an A.

Well, come grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity!

It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

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One famous leader once said, “Comitting a mistake is wisdom. Not learning from it is stupidity”. Are you hiding and trying to perfect something before you go out in the open? Or are you in the open committing mistakes and learning from it?

I suddenly missed him. Especially that my car’s power steering has been needing the fluid for 2 weeks now and I can’t find where the heck is that hole where I place the fluid. Gah. Stupid.

My dad, he’s a genius. In a lot of things. In cars, in music — sings very well, in the farm, knows animals. One really cool guy. I wish I can be just a portion of what he is in terms of handling pressures in life.

This picture is in honor of my dad, who will be here in Manila on Friday to fix my car.

Oh, and yes, I also love my mom. ;D When everything settles in, she’s be the first to benefit from it. Ma, you know what I mean.

A couple of twit from @guitarchic caught my attention. She mentioned about following and sending a Twitter message to Ashton Kutcher. I was winding down from a tiring coding day, so it kind of got me interested and searched for Ashton @aplusk.

His profile: 500,000++ followers! Now, if you have half a million people following you on Twitter, you can do a lot of things with it. And so I found out that he did.

I’m not a showbiz-type of guy, but I know he and Demi Moore, the “Ghost” girl, are a couple. And so I tried to read back his Twitter page. I found out that he was planning something for Demi with his Twitter friends.

This illustrates how social networking bridges the gap between celebrities and fans, between people across the world, between generations. So, the basic question Twitter answers “What are you doing right now?” can actually produce a wide range of other stuff, eh! From business promotions to vanity to being romantic — oh I love my generation!

(Note: with all respect and no offense meant to the Roman Catholic Church, these insights do not describe her when I mention the word “church”. I’m talking about mostly evangelical churches where membership are tight and each member has a sense of “family”, unlike the admittedly current state of the Roman Catholic church where parishioners just come and go Sunday in and Sunday out. But that’s another issue. Title idea grabbed from Dennis)

I’ve been thinking about this lately:

1. What if the church is just like a social club? As long as you pay your yearly or monthly dues, as long as you can keep up with other members of the club, as long as you can have some funny stories to tell after the meeting, you’re all good. They won’t care about what you do after each “sosyalan” meetings. The moment you ride your car home, you’re all alone. They won’t bother what you do after you leave the hall. Just call them if you need connections later on — you’ve got to do that, because they will do that to you, too. Gamitan lang ang laban samga social club.

2. What if the church is like a barkadahan, a clique? Your friends are with you when everything is cool. If things get rough, they leave. Some, of course, will stay with you. True friends are such. But they don’t care about your future, they care about the fun of the present. This is where you will hear them say, “Pare, kung saan ka masaya, susuportahan ka namin“. That sounds comforting. But in reality, they may well be driving you off the cliff. But they don’t care. Anyway, if driving off the cliff is where you’re happy at, they’ll support you. That’s what friends are for, right?

3. What if the church is a fraternity? You do something good — or hard — to enter the exclusive group. So once you’re in, you’re in. And you’re a brother. They will support you whatever you do. Good, bad. Everything, just do it. Not only that they are supporting you, they will even go with you. So whether it’s community service or a plot to kill a member of another fraternity, they will join you. That’s their definition of brotherhood.

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Case in point: if say, for the sake of illustration, I have a church-mate whom I love so much, and I know that he’s heading to the cliff — that what he’s doing will hurt him, his love ones, other people’s love ones, how should I treat him? Should I treat him like a social club member? “Oh, well, I don’t care what you do after you leave the Sunday service. You’re giving your offerings, and we need you as a member. You help the organization. So, do whatever you want to do”.

Two words that describe what should happen in a church: grace and intollerance.

We are called to love anyone — warts and all. We should accept everyone who needs love, patience and mercy. In the first place, a church is a hospital field with wounded individuals. It should not become a social club of holier-than-thou religious pharisees. If anyone sins, let the church show grace and mercy and love.

BUT…

The church should also show intolerance to known sins. God hates sin. He is angry at sin. In fact, sin is the reason why Jesus died on the cross. If God is intolerant to sin, the church, as a God-honoring institution, should act the same way.

While we love every sinner, we should not tolerate sins. In fact, we should rebuke all forms of sins.

Unfortunately, along the way, correcting an individual will lead into hoops:

* The “you don’t have the right” hoop. This is where a church is different from a social club or a clique. When one decides to be part of a local church, they become his spiritual partners. And as partners, it is their right to help you go through your spiritual issues. It is their right to guide you. To correct you. To show you how Jesus can help you overcome your sin. You too, have the right: and that is the right to refuse. On the other hand, your refusal to be under correction can lead the church to act and provide disciplinary actions.

* The “why would a sinner like you correct me?” hoop . This is very common. I was asked one time. How should you respond whenever someone who is being rebuked would say “You yourself have committed mistakes like this, how can you afford to rebuke me?” Here’s a fact: nobody is blameless. Nobody is sinless. Nobody is perfect. But that doesn’t mean everyone is disqualified to lovingly correct another member of the church because he himself is a sinner. If the rebuke is based on the Word of God, everyone, whatever past he has, if done with the purpose other than to humiliate the person, can correct anyone who has been outwardly sinning.

* The “don’t judge me” hoop. “Don’t judge so you won’t be judged” has been used out of context over and over again. It’s a whole new topic, but to explain in short, everyone can pass judgment if he thinks the judgment is based on the Bible. If the Bible is clear, then go ahead and declare it in front of the sinning individual.

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A church is a family. It’s the type of family that never ends. It’s the only relationship that will exist throughout eternity. It is very important for us to realize that being in a church family is a gift and a responsibility. We’re not a social club where you won’t care about your fellow member’s sinful acts. We’re not a clique where you will not care and say nothing about your friend’s sins just because he is “happy” for what he is doing, when you know that it will lead him to death. Neither it is like a fraternity that will even tolerate the sin!

A church will say something, do something, and stop something — because of love. Sometimes, correction will hurt. Sometimes, it will try to destroy so it can rebuild. The Bible says, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love” (Prov. 27:5) If the church rebukes a sinner, it is because of love. It is because she desires restoration. The goal is to bring back that lost relationship with God broken by the bonds of sin. If reconcillation is the heart of God, this should be the heart of the church. And if restoration means pain and suffering, it will be done just so a better, more vibrant relationship with God can be restored.